A Home of Shifting Sand
by mosylu
Summary: Isn't it a brother's job to take care of his baby sister? When Harry and Ginny visit Bill in Egypt, he gets concerned. Something's just not right with her . . . Sequel to Home is Where the Heart is. Most recently uploaded: Ch 5. and this story is DONE!
1. Part One

"Bill!"

Bill shook off the dust of the tomb and shaded his eyes. The sight of the pretty dark-haired woman made his heart leap, which he was just about used to now. "Ellie? How's Rania doing?"

"She's going to be all right. There's people here for you."

"Who?"

She grinned. "One of them's got red hair. They stayed back in the camp."

Family, then--but who? Bill broke into a jog--couldn't rush about too much in this sun--still wondering.

Two figures, wearing black robes instead of the white ones more practical for this climate, stood in the shade of one of the canopies. One, tall with pale splotches dotting his dark hair, stood leaning against a support pole, staring out at the pyramids. The other, much smaller, sat at a table, her brilliant hair spilling down over her shoulders. Bill stopped short. "Ginny!?"

The red-head looked up. "Bill!" She leapt to her feet and hurled herself into his arms as she had when she was very small.

He hugged her back, but said, "Ginny, what are you doing here?" Her hug had been harder than usual, and although he could have attributed that to not seeing him for awhile, he could also feel the tension that strung her slim body tight as a violin section. The big brother in him reared up. What was wrong?

"Fine sort of greeting that is," she scolded, and kissed him on the cheek. "We were in the area, and I talked Harry into running up here to see you."

Bill knew for a fact that the young man who moved to greet him was only twenty-one, but the white streaks in his black hair and the expression in his brilliant green eyes made him seem much more than a year Ginny's senior. "Hiya, Harry," he said, shaking his hand. "How are you?"

"Fine, thanks. Bit warmish."

Bill laughed out loud. It was hot enough to boil a teakettle in the sand. "Water bottles and salt tablets are stored over there," he said, pointing to a chest sitting under one of the tables. "Get used to 'em. They're your best friends." He started to open the chest.

"We're fine for that," Harry said. "We came prepared." He opened up his backpack and produced two bottles that radiated cold. "Ginny, you've got the--"

"Oh, yes." She patted her pockets and found a flat tin box. "Here."

Bill took out a water bottle for himself, anyway. "How are you?" he asked, taking a drink.

"Lovely. We've just come from--where were we, Harry?"

"Johannesburg," Harry said.

"South Africa," Bill said doubtfully. "That's in the area?"

Ginny shrugged. "It's on the same continent."

"Did you bring me anything?" he teased.

She giggled. As a little girl, she'd ask him that whenever he returned to the Burrow, whether he'd come from Hogwarts, Egypt, or Ottery St. Catchpole. "Greedy," she said, taking his part. "No."

"Have you got a place where we can drop our things?" Harry asked.

"Oh, yeah. How long do you reckon you'll be hanging about?"

They looked at each other. "Don't rightly know," Ginny said. "For as long as you'll have us?"

"That long, eh?" Bill led them toward two tents, sitting just east of a pyramid's shadow. "Harry, that one on the right is the men's tent. Should be an empty bunk around in there somewhere. Ginny, the other one is the women's."

"No guest tents?" Ginny asked.

He pinched her cheek. "You're my baby sister--d'you really think I'd scare up a cozy one-bedroom for the pair of you?"

"It's fine," Harry said. "Might be better this way."

Ginny glanced at him and frowned. Then the frown cleared away. "Yeah," she said. "I'll get me some girl time, for once." 

"Why don't we wash clothes while we've got the time?" Harry suggested. He turned to Bill. "Can you show me where the laundry tub is? We're probably going to be a bit ripe. We've got our own soap, that's no problem."

"I can lend you some of my robes," Bill offered, but Harry shook his head.

"We're probably not the same size. Anyway, I'll have to do it sometime."

"We should," Ginny said. "I'll bring mine out." She turned to Bill. "When do we get to meet everybody?"

"Dinner's in an hour. Bring your stomach pump--Yves is on duty tonight."

"French food?"

"Er . . . French, anyway."

Ginny waved at them before ducking into the women's tent, and Bill accompanied Harry into the men's. He felt as if he'd missed half the conversation out there on the sand. Something was going on between the two of them, something he couldn't understand. He could ask Ginny about it, but not, somehow, Harry.

"Here we are," he said brightly. "A bunk all ready."

Harry dropped his bag. "Thanks for having us," he said. "I know it's a surprise."

"Oh, we're always getting visitors, it's nothing. And it's family, after all."

Harry, rooting in his bag, paused and looked over his shoulder. "Yeah," he said after a moment, and pulled out a bundle of robes, both black and white. 

"You about ready to take her home?" Bill asked.

Harry's hands paused in the act of sorting the black robes out from the white. "What?"

"Just wondered if you were going to take her home anytime soon."

He started sorting again. "I'll take her home when she chooses to go."

"Oh come on!" Bill burst out. "Don't you think this has gone on long enough? She's had her adventure. You've been around the world five or six times by now."

"Only once or twice."

"What I mean is, enough already. Isn't she getting tired of this? Doesn't she miss home?"

At that, he paused again. "Yes. To both questions. But she doesn't want to go home. Not yet." He hesitated and finally said, "When she wants to go home, she'll tell me." He looked down at his left hand. "She promised me she would."

"Are you sure of that? She's not made for adventure, Ginny. Just because you feel like jaunting about, she'll swallow anything and follow you. She's like that, and you're taking advantage of it."

"She's not following me," Harry said. "She's with me. There's a difference."

Bill said, "_Harry_--"

Harry's eyes, when he looked up, were flat and cool. "D'you think any of this lecture is new to me? The first letter I got from Ron after we left for Paris was the longest rant ever set to parchment."

"We're her brothers," Bill said, feeling stupidly like Percy. "It's our job to look after her."

"It's more of a habit, I should think," Harry said quietly. "One you'd do well to break. She doesn't need anyone looking after her."

"Except you, I suppose?"

"Especially not me." Harry picked up his two piles, balancing them in his hands. His face was politely unreadable. "Tell Ginny I'll be out in a minute, would you?"


	2. Part Two

As people wandered into the mess tent for dinner, Bill called them over. "Oy, Dan! Come meet my sister. You too, Jacki."

As Bill had told Harry earlier, they got visitors a lot, so nobody was surprised to see a new face at the long dinner table. A few were surprised by whose face it was, though.

"What? No kidding!" Dan protested. "You never told me you knew him!"

Ginny giggled. "It would surprise you, who Bill knows," she said.

Bill made a face at her. His history in the Order wasn't something he talked about--not because he was ashamed of it, God knew, but because it was over.

_"God_, you're young," Dan said, squinting at Harry. 

"Sorry," Harry said mildly. "Been trying to do something about that my entire life."

Dan laughed and said, "Bill, staple my lips shut, would you?"

"Sorry about him," Bill told Harry. "He's American. Can't help it."

"Casting aspersions on my countrymen again?" said a voice from behind him.

Bill felt the smile spread all over his face, and didn't do a thing to check it. "Hallo, Ellie," he said, turning.

"Hey there." She grinned back at him. "Do I get introduced now?"

"Yes, you do." He took her hand. "Ginny, Harry, this is Ellie Jones, out of the States. Ellie, my little sister Ginny and her--er--boyfriend. Harry Potter."

Ellie's brows rose almost to her hairline. "I didn't realize when I saw you earlier--" she said, holding out a hand. "So you're the famous one, huh?"

Harry shrugged. "Not by choice," he said, and shook her hand.

"And Ginny! You're famous too, you know."

"Am I?" Ginny raised her eyebrows at Bill.

"Your entire family is, around here." Ellie laughed when Ginny groaned. "Wait a sec," she said. "Bill, is this the sister that--?"

"This is the only sister I've got, so it must be."

Ginny was looking between them. "What?"

Ellie laughed again, pushing her hair back. "Bill told me the story about you and Nicolette."

Ginny groaned again, putting her face in her hands. "Oh, no, not that one--"

"Who's Nicolette?" Harry wanted to know.

"Biiiiiiiiill," Ginny half-moaned, half-warned from behind her hands.

"Oh, come on, Wee One, the story's just priceless."

"Let's hear!" someone down the table shouted.

"Yeah, we've heard everyone else's stories!"

"Come on!"

"I'd love to hear one I haven't before," Harry said, grinning.

Ginny shook her head, but it was more resigned than anything else.

"Well?" Bill asked her.

"Go ahead," she sighed. "It would have come out anyway."

Bill leaned forward. "Right, so--Ginny was twenty months old, you have to understand." He grinned at his sister. "She was a cute baby, really she was."

"Really? What happened?" Harry asked a little too innocently, and Ginny leaned across the table to poke his shoulder. He gave her an injured look. "All I meant is that you're _gorgeous_ now . . . what did you think?"

Gorgeous? She was just Ginny. Bill shook his head, trying to get his train of thought back on track. "So--yeah. Nicolette was this girl from school."

"Pretty?" Dan asked hopefully.

"A knockout. Tall, blonde, great big--"

Ellie quirked her brow at him.

"Blue eyes," he finished up, grinning. "I was mad for her. Thought she was the greatest thing since the invention of the wand. So I invited her to my house for a little bit during the summer holidays. And of course, she wanted to hold Ginny--"

"Because she was so cute," Dan grinned.

"What nobody realized was that Ginny was just catching a nasty stomach flu."

"Oooooo," went around the table, with accompanying winces.

"And Nicolette had no more idea of how to hold a baby than she did of how to ride an elephant," Ginny put in.

"True, true," Bill admitted. "So Nicolette jiggled her about for fifteen minutes. Now, Ginny's always been rather sweet-tempered--"

"Ha!" Harry said, and Ginny held up her fork threateningly.

"But she finally decided she'd had enough, and she threw up strained peas all over Nicolette."

"Oh, _ouch!"_ Dan said.

"Right, exactly," Bill said. "Now, we were sort of embarrassed, but you know how many brothers and cousins I have Baby puke was really nothing any one of us hadn't seen before, or couldn't handle. But Nicolette--she screamed the house down."

"Oh," Ellie said sympathetically.

"She was more concerned with her blouse than with whether Ginny was all right or not. And that was like a wake-up call. I was really into this girl, you know, but that--wow. I just suddenly realized that what I thought she was and what she really was, were two different things." He gave his sister's hair an affectionate tug. "So Ginny saved my life on that one."

Ginny was blushing madly, but she managed to say, "You're welcome, Bill."

The laughter gave way to good-natured griping as the food appeared. Yves said, "Eef you don' like eet, don' put me on rotation," and sat down.

"We shouldn't, you know," Rania said from across the table. "This stuff's just awful."

"Just means you'll have to cook more often," Bill said cheerfully.

Rania shrugged and applied herself to her food, chewing with grimaces. "You're not eating," she said to Ginny.

"We ate just before we left Johannesburg." Ginny wrinkled her nose, her eyes dancing. "Couldn't force down another bite. Really."

Rania laughed. "Lucky you."

"'Ey!" Yves yelled, and then everyone laughed.

"I've been listening to your accent. Are you from the Middle East?" Ginny asked her.

Rania nodded. "Jordan. Were you ever there?"

"Not yet," Harry said. "Maybe we will someday."

"So this is an international project," Ginny said musingly. "Americans, Frenchmen, Jordanian . . ."

"And a buffet of others," Bill said. "The Magical Artifacts Department gave Jacki--" he nodded at the expedition leader, "leave to pick the best for this, and surprise surprise, they're _not_ all in the UK."

Dan threw a biscuit at him, and he ducked. "Hey! We've already had one concussion today, thanks!"

"Loimey buggah," Dan said in an exaggerated, and terrible, upper-crust accent.

"Upstarrrrrrt Yaink," Bill drawled, as close to the American twang as he could manage.

"Hang on," Ginny said suddenly. "Concussion?"

"A stupid accident," Rania said. "It's not even really a concussion, just a bump. Some rocks came loose when I was looking at the carvings in that new chamber."

"It was my fault, honest," Ellie said. "My hand slipped."

"Oh, I know that!" Rania waved the apology away. "It's nothing."

"What did you find from the carvings, Ran?" Jacki asked with interest.

"Something about old magics," Rania reported. "Vengeance spells, power spells . . . Fascinating stuff, really different from what I've seen before." Belatedly, she added, "A little dangerous too, possibly, so maybe we shouldn't do unnecessary spell-casting in that area."

"Got that, everyone?" Jacki called out.

Rania waited for the various noises of assent to die down before she continued, "I've copied them down and I'm going to work on the translations to see exactly what they are." She shook her head. "It's in some dialect, I don't know--"

Bill said to Ginny and Harry, "Rania's our expert on language. She knows about five."

"Wow," Ginny said. "Five!"

Sitting next to Dan, Harry glanced up and across the table at Ginny. The younger man's eyes glinted behind his glasses, and the corners of Ginny's mouth twitched. She looked down at her plate and bit her lip. Harry laughed low in his throat.

Bill looked away, feeling his face heat. He felt like a voyeur, witnessing this obviously private joke.

"So you weren't expecting anything like this?" Harry asked.

"Not at all," Jacki said. "You can bet they never would have put me in charge if they were."

Shouts to leave off the false modesty echoed around the table. Jacki was well-liked.

"It's so exciting," Ellie told Harry and Ginny, her eyes sparkling. "We thought this was just another dusty old tomb--"

"Not that we don't like dusty old tombs," Rania said.

"Revel in them," Dan said, leaning over.

"Well, of course," Ellie said. "But you have to admit this one's special. Makes me wonder what else we're going to find in there."

  


* * *

After dinner, Bill accompanied Ginny to the clothesline behind the mess tent. He frowned at the line. "He washed the sheets too?"

Ginny looked and laughed. "Sorry! Nothing on your housekeeping, I'm sure, it's just we've been in so many places where the sheets haven't seen so much as a damp paper towel in eons. I guess we've both just fallen in the habit of stripping the beds when we wash clothes." She pulled one down, and Bill took the other end to help her fold it. In Egypt's dry heat, it hadn't taken long for the sun to do its work, and the cloth was almost crisp. 

He was glad he'd gotten his sister alone, without Harry around. Not that he didn't like Harry. Of course not. Even after that strange discussion in the tent. But it was just nice to have his baby sister to himself for a moment.

"This place is wonderful, Bill," Ginny said, pausing to examine a rent in a robe. "Everyone is so nice." With a flick of her wand, she repaired the tear and folded the robe in three.

"They're wonderful people." He took a breath, shyness and excitement warring within him. "Listen--ah--"

"Yes?"

"What do you think of Ellie?"

Her hand paused in the act of reaching up for a sock. "Of--Ellie?"

"Yeah, of Ellie," Bill said, plucking a robe off the line. She was the first member of his family he would tell about Ellie. 

"I--I don't know--I've just met her, Bill."

He frowned. It wasn't like Ginny to dance around something like this. "Well, what's your first impression, then?"

"She's--nice. Why do you ask?"

Bill relaxed. When Ginny knew, she'd understand. "Ginny, she's the one."

__

Ginny's face went curiously still and blank. "The . . . one."

"The one," he repeated. "The _one_, Ginny. Like Penny. Like Morgan. Like Angelina. My one."

"I know what you meant," she said almost sharply. "I was just--surprised, that's all."

He frowned. "Don't you like her?" He'd been so certain they would adore each other.

"Goodness," Ginny said with forced gaiety, "I hardly know her. I'm just surprised. I'm sure I'll love her when I get to know her."

All right. That was it, then. She was right. She'd just barely met Ellie, and here he was pushing her to make a judgement on the strength of a few hours. Naturally, they would love each other. "She's just . . . wonderful, Wee One," he said. "Perfect. Absolutely perfect. You'll love her. I promise. She's smart, and she's got a great sense of humor, and she wants just piles of kids, you know how important that is to the likes of us, and we agree on everything important, and I don't honestly think she'd mind moving to England if I asked--"

"Isn't there anything wrong with her?" Ginny sounded amused, but there was an edge to it that he didn't quite understand.

He had to think about that. "No."

"Hmm," Ginny said. "She does sound perfect."

"She is," he said, relieved that his sister understood so well. "She's--well, you'll get to know her, and you'll see what I mean."

"I'm sure I will."

"You will! And--" He collected himself. "Sorry to be babbling on."

"Oh, no, go ahead. Babble."

"No, I'll let up." He turned to the the other subject on his mind. "So," he said. "How are--things?"

"All right," she said.

"Not tired of the wandering yet?"

She made a rueful face at a sock that looked more like a fishing net. "I won't deny that parts of it have gotten a bit old."

"So you're ready to go back to England."

"I never said that." 

Bill raised his brows. Had that reply been a shade too quick?

She shrugged. "You can get used to anything, you know. And I'm with Harry. That's what matters right now."

"Hmmm." He passed her a pair of socks he'd just matched. "Are you sure you're doing all right?"

She seemed to concentrating awfully hard on folding one of Harry's robes. "Why do you ask?"

"You just seem--different."

"It's been awhile since you've seen me," she said. "Of course I'm different."

"Unhappy," he said. "Something's making you . . . unhappy."

She paused and looked at him for a moment. The desert breeze kicked up and stirred her hair around her face. Finally, she said, "No."

"You're sure?"

"I'm tired. We had a time of it in Johannesburg."

"Doing wh--"

"I'll be fine after I get some sleep."

Frustration bubbled in the pit of his stomach. "You know you can tell me anything, Wee One," he said.

She didn't answer.

They'd almost completely cleared the line when she said, "We were in France recently, you know."

"Were you?" he asked, puzzled.

"Mhm. The south. We stayed with Fleur."

An old wound, one he'd thought was scarred over and forgotten, gave an unexpected twinge. "On holiday, was she?"

"No, she lives there now." Ginny gave him a sidelong glance. "Erm--with her new husband."

It was a moment before he could say even, "Oh."

Silence.

"Well," Bill said. "What's his name?"

"Luc deBussey."

Bill had never heard of the man, which surprised him. He'd always thought Fleur would marry a millionaire, or a celebrity. "What's he like?"

"Quite nice. He--er--owns a vineyard."

"I see. One of those monstrous huge ones that sells wine all over the world, I take it?" His voice was about as light and airy as a concrete bowling ball.

"No, actually. Local. Maybe regional."

"That's surprising."

"Well . . . maybe a little. We all know Fleur. But . . ." she bit her lip, staring at the socks. "She loved him enough to compromise."

"Fleur? Compromise?"

"She wasn't the only one."

He breathed out through his nose. "I'm not totally dumb. I know what you're getting at."

"I'm not getting at anything. What happened--it was both of you, all right? She knows that now. She asked to be remembered to you."

"Good of her."

"_Bill."_

He picked up the basket and turned. In the mess tent, Ellie looked up from the washing-up and smiled at him. He smiled back and felt the sting ease. "All right, Wee One," he said. "I'll leave off being an arse."

"I just didn't want you to hear from someone else."

"I know," he said. "And--" He stopped, swallowed, and forced the words out. "If you happen to write her sometimes, just tell her I say congratulations, all right."

She didn't answer for so long that he turned his head to look at her. She smiled at him then, but it was a sad smile. She knew exactly what that conventional politeness had cost him. "I'll do that."

  


* * *

Bill pulled on a cloak before he ducked out of the tent. Out here in the true desert, where there was no concrete or steel to release stored heat after sundown, the cool of the evening felt like a bitter autumn morning back in England. 

Ellie leaned against a support pole and watched Harry and Ginny walk out under the shadow of the pyramids, bundled in their own cloaks. She was shivering, just slightly. Bill padded up behind her and slipped his arms around her waist. "Hi."

"Hi yourself," she said, leaning back against him and sighing. "You're warm. Thanks."

For half a second, he considered telling her what Ginny had told him, about Fleur. Then he pushed the thought away. He didn't want to dwell on it, not with Ellie. Instead, he said, "What do you think?" and gestured out toward the couple on the sand.

"Of Harry?"

"Well, him too--my sister, I mean."

"She's very sweet." Ellie threw him a teasing look over her shoulder. "I can really tell she's a Weasley."

"Yeah, we're distinctive."

He couldn't see her face now, because she'd turned back around. "How long have you known Harry Potter?"

"Harry? Oh, years. My little brother Ron's been his best mate since their first year at Hogwarts, and I met him just before his fourth year."

"He's not anything like I expected," she said slowly.

"No, he isn't, is he?" Bill rested his cheek on Ellie's hair. "It shocked me, the first time I met him. Mum had told me a million things about him, and so had Ron, and Ginny . . . and I thought it was all exaggerated. Then I met him, and he looked so small and young, but there was just this _look_ in his eyes that was a million years old . . . and I remember thinking, well, I believe all that stuff now . . ." He shook himself. "Anyway. He's a good kid."

"Must have been interesting when your little sister fell in love with him."

"Sort of. She's always had a crush. Hero-worship."

Out on the sand, Ginny rose up on her toes and whispered something in Harry's ear. He glanced down at her, then reached out to take her hand.

"I can see it. You think it'll last much longer?"

And wasn't that just like Ellie, to voice the precise thing he was thinking. "Don't know. She's not happy. She says she is, but I know her. She's not happy."

Ginny had started to swing their linked hands back and forth, grinning up at Harry. He used the momentum of the upswing to twirl Ginny, as if they were on a dance floor. Her hair and the hem of her cloak flared out, and her laugh drifted across the sand as she came out of the spin into his arms. They danced together, two steps, three, to some inaudible music. 

It stirred some old, old memory in Bill's mind--Mum and Dad, dancing together in the kitchen, laughing when their sons shrieked in horror . . . 

Then Harry spun Ginny a second time, and this time when she came out of it, they continued walking. Bill frowned at them.

"Hmmm," Ellie said, and left it at that.

Right this moment, they didn't _look_ like an unhappy couple. But . . . 

Something _was _bothering Ginny. He knew it, just the way he'd always known before she started to howl that she was hungry or dirty or the twins had slipped itching powder in her nappies again. It had to be about Harry.

What else could it be?


	3. Part Three

The next morning, Bill went to the newest chamber to clean up the leftover hexes. He'd gotten the nastiest of them when they'd opened it up, but sometimes the annoying little ones, like the Pebble-in-Your-Shoe Hex, were worse than the great whistling blade that swooped down out of the dark. You could at least duck the blade.

"This is great," Ellie told him. She was sketching the carvings. "I mean, this is really incredible."

He crouched down beside her to have a look. "Rania having much luck with the translations?"

"Mmm. Some. She's got a chunk that talks about the full moon, and some spell or other--all about the power of the underworld." She took a breath and let it out in a whoosh. "My god, I could dance. I've been looking for something like this all my life."

He looked at her, with that wonderful passion for knowledge blazing in her eyes, and fell even farther in love. "You're incredible," he said.

She smiled up at him. "Thanks! What was that for?"

"Just being you."

"It's what I'm best at." She angled her wand to see another set of carvings and turned a page. "How's your sister today?"

"Pretty good. Jacki cleared them to poke around in some of the chambers we've already gone all the way through. They're having fun."

"Good." She looked at him sidelong. "What is they do all over the place, anyway?"

Bill sighed. "You're asking the wrong person. As far as I can tell, they just wander." He frowned. "It's not like Ginny, you know? She's always had to have a purpose in life, even if it was learning how to tie her shoeloaces a whole year earlier than any of us. I never thought she'd enjoy just drifting. But it's been three years."

"Maybe she doesn't enjoy it," Ellie said. "She was so tired out last night that she fell asleep in her shoes. We didn't even realize until she got up this morning and they were still on her feet."

"Really? Harry did the same thing. My sister did say they had an interesting time in Johannesburg." He frowned again. "She just didn't say what made it so interesting."

  


* * *

It was Bill's turn to cook that night, and his guests offered their help. He handed Ginny a knife and a handful of carrots. "Hey," she said. "Where did these come from?"

"The box of mysteries," he said in a sonorous voice.

She wrinkled her nose at him. He relented. "The British Ministry. It's a neat little spell--they have a box, we have a box. Some sort of variation on a transport spell. I'm sure someone like your friend Hermione thought it up. We put in a list every morning, and by the evening, the raw supplies are here. We're just not allowed to ask for things like filet mignon and caviar."

"Caviar," Ginny announced, "is disgusting."

He pointed at a cutting board. "Go. Chop."

"Don't cut your finger off again," Harry said, filling a huge cauldron full of water.

Bill turned right around from the meat he was browning. "Finger? What?"

Ginny stuck her tongue out at Harry. "Blabbermouth. And I did not cut it off."

He grinned at her. "You took a lovely slice out of it, though."

"What's this about a finger?" Bill persisted.

"Keep your hair on, Bill, I'm fine. We were working in a restaurant in New York City and my hand slipped. That's all."

"What were you doing working in a restaurant?" Bill asked.

Ginny shrugged, wielding her knife like Jack the Ripper. On her left index finger, a long pinkish scar shone against her skin. "For the fun of it." She grinned and scraped bits of carrot from her board into Bill's pan. He handed her a bunch of celery. "I sent Mum this entire sheaf of recipes. We learnt more Spanish swear words in that place--"

"More Spanish, period," Harry put in. "It was run by first-generation immigrants from Puerto Rico. The Serranos." He grinned too. "It was like being back at the Burrow. The grandmother practically adopted us."

"Muggles or wizards?" Bill asked. This was the first story he'd heard of their travels, and he wanted them to keep going.

"Mostly Muggles, but the younger daughter went to the Colonial School--you know, in Maine. That's how we found the place. Half the wizards and witches in Manhattan stop in on Friday night."

"The magic must have come down from Mamacita's side. Her _food!"_ Ginny kissed her fingers like a bad imitation of a French chef. "Mum would have loved her."

People started drifting in, drawn by the smell of Bill's cooking. Jacki always scheduled Bill to cook after Yves, as a sort of apology. 

Ellie came up. "Bill," she said, holding out a flat tin box. "Salt."

He took the tablet she handed him and popped it in his mouth. "Ellie's the Salt Police," he told Harry and Ginny. "Makes sure everybody gets one at the proper times every day."

"I just don't want anyone getting sick," she said. "How about you two?" 

They each took one. But when Bill turned to stir his meat again, he could have sworn he saw Ginny palm it and slide it into her pocket, just as she always had when Mum tried to give her the vitamins she hated. He frowned and opened his mouth.

"Bill," Harry said, "watch out, you're sticking the spatula straight in the flame."

Bill swore and jerked the glowing spatula quickly out of the fire. He could have sworn his pan had been half an inch to the left. "Brain's melting," he said.

Ellie wandered over and peered into Harry's cauldron. "Don't fall in," he said.

She kept her distance. "Mmm. Potatoes. Mashed or boiled?"

"Mashed," Bill decided. 

"In that case, d'you have any garlic?" Ginny asked, and Bill pointed her at a box under the table. She pulled out a bulb, popped out a clove, and smashed it with the flat of her blade before twisting the knife and starting to dice. 

"Slick," Bill said.

"Yeah, I learned that in Rome."

"Mmm, Rome," Ellie said. "So warm."

"Another restaurant," Harry said, dropping a skinned potato into the water.

"And me in the kitchen again," Ginny put in. "More recipes." Her eyes lit with mischief. "Ask me about my killer lasagna sometime."

Harry coughed so violently that Bill pulled the cauldron away. "You all right?"

"Yeah," he said, mopping his streaming eyes. 

Ginny said, "Harry was wine steward. Remember that, Harry? I thought it was hilarious."

"Why?" Bill asked.

"Well, he's the cheapest drunk on the planet, you see."

"I'm not that bad," Harry protested.

"Please, darling, you can't hold your liquor in a tin tub." She turned to Bill. "There was this one time . . ."

One story led to another as they finished up dinner and took it to the long dining table. Like most groups that had been together for a long time, the excavation team was starved for some new tales. They laughed, squealed, and gasped at all the right places. 

Bill enjoyed them too, but he noted some things underneath the stories . . . all the different jobs they'd worked, all the places they'd wandered to, for no apparent reason than that they wanted to see them, all the little gaps in the stories where something wasn't being told.

_There really is something funny going on here_, he thought, looking at them. _Why doesn't she leave him and go home?_

Harry was telling a story about Ginny, Mai Tais, and a karoke bar. "And after the first song, the emcee came over to me and said--" He tried to imitate the drawl of the American South. "'You were right, I _don't_ want her up there, no matter how cute she is. What'll it take to get her off the stage?' and I told him, 'You got yourself into this, you get yourself out. I warned you.'" His eyes glinted behind his glasses. "I finally cast a Silencing Spell when she started singing Elvis. We might not have gotten out of there alive otherwise."

The table erupted in laughter, and Ginny squealed in mock rage. "Just for that, Potter, I'm telling the story about you and that girl in Rio de Janeiro."

"Hey!" Harry protested. 

"What girl?" Bill asked.

"Nobody," Harry told him.

Ginny said at the same time, "Her name was . . . god, I don't even remember, Lolita or something."

"Mercedes," Harry said, and she cocked a brow at him. "Just making sure you get it right," he added.

"And from minute one, she was after Harry," Ginny continued.

"She couldn't believe I wasn't interested in her," Harry put in. "Which I _wasn't_."

"And then one day, Harry started acting all funny, trailing around after her like a sick cow, trying to learn Portuguese love songs . . ."

"I was not."

"You were. You don't remember properly." Ginny turned back. "Turns out Senhorita Mercedes had a dab hand with Love Charms, for when her looks didn't do the job. I practically had to knock him unconscious to get him somewhere that the enchantment could wear off."

"It was a Love Charm," Harry defended himself, laughing. "I couldn't do anything against it. You know what those are like. I never would have gone near her if not for that."

"It wouldn't have worked if you weren't at least a little interested," Ellie said.

Ginny and Harry both went still. 

"Why do you say that?" Ginny said slowly.

Ellie's mouth opened and closed for a moment. Bill thought, _She must not have meant to say it aloud._

"I--no reason. So what happened then?" she asked desperately.

"No, let's go back to Love Charms," Ginny said.

"She said it didn't matter," Harry said quickly.

Ginny ignored him, her attention focused like the sun through a magnifying glass on Ellie. "What did you mean, he had to be interested for it to work?"

Ellie sighed. "Most people," she explained reluctantly, "think that Love Charms are like the Imperius Curse. That they all force someone to do what they'd never do in the first place. But really--" She stopped. "It's not important."

"I think it is," Ginny said coldly.

"Th-they just play on what the person secretly wants. Love Charms aren't so much about brute force as they are about . . . persuading."

Ginny said to Harry, "You said you didn't like her at all." 

Bill recognized the look in her eye. It was the same one Mum got when she was about to take a strip off someone's hide. 

Harry must have recognized it too. "I--"

"That it was all the charm."

Bill said, "Ginny--come on now--"

"What was I supposed to tell you?" Harry asked with that peculiarly male note of desperation in his voice.

"The truth!"

"Right, I'm supposed to say, 'This woman is really captivating but it doesn't mean anything?' And anyway, believe me, it was true by the time you disenchanted me."

"Captivating?" Ginny's voice rose.

"Hey," Bill said, his voice deliberately cheerful. "Ginny, d'you want any more--"

She didn't even look at him. "Does that mean you're bored by me now?"

"N-no!" Harry floundered. "That's not what I said!"

Bill didn't know where to put his face. Everyone else tried to pretend that nothing was going on, passing the mashed potatoes with an air of studied unconcern. It would have been comical if they hadn't been able to hear the couple's furious whispers.

"I thought we already had this fight," Harry muttered.

"We did, but apparently not all of it."

"It doesn't mean anything anymore. It was months ago."

"Two. And I thought we were going to be honest with each other."

Harry looked down at the long dining table. Several people developed abrupt fascinations with their forks. "Can we talk about this later?"

Ginny crossed her arms. "You can bet we're going to."

Ellie looked back and forth between them, a dismayed look on her face. "I'm so sorry," she said, and the distress in her voice was so clear Bill reached for her hand under the table. "I never would have said anything if I'd known it was going to be a problem . . ."

"It's all right. I'm glad you did say something, Ellie." Ginny's voice was dangerously sweet. "It's always nice to know the truth."

Harry poked at the meat on his plate and didn't say anything.


	4. Part Four

Ginny disappeared after dinner. Harry stuck around to help Rania with the washing-up, scrubbing plates with forced energy.

Bill couldn't think of a thing to say to him, so he didn't. All the things he normally would have said to another man who'd just been in a fight with his girl--she's absolutely wrong, don't listen to a thing she says, that's just the way women are--didn't apply here, because from the sound of it Ginny was absolutely right_._ She was too sensible to flare up over nothing. If she was mad, she had good reason.

Studying him, Bill debated whether to let Harry take off his glasses before he beat him to a pulp.

Ellie went to Harry as he was drying his hands. "I'm really sorry," she said again. "I never should have opened my big mouth. Do you want me to talk to her?"

Harry hesitated a moment, obviously wavering, then straightened his shoulders. "I should talk to her. We need to have this out."

"You're sure? Because--"

"No, I'm sure." He looked past Ellie at Bill. "If I'm not back by about midnight, leave my body for the scavengers."

Bill almost smiled at that, but he stopped himself.

  


* * *

Harry came back several hours before midnight, shoving the tent-flap aside in a furious motion that told everyone it hadn't gone well at all. Conversation died, and Bill gave him a cold look.

Harry didn't seem to notice. He dropped backward onto his bunk, bouncing slightly. "Why," he said to the slats above him, "do we need women? _Why?"_

"I'm right here," Bill said. "And I once turned my brother into a warthog for putting her stuffed unicorn on the roof of the henhouse. Just remember that before you say anything else."

"Yeah," Harry said, and put his pillow over his face. After a moment, he lifted it. "Which brother was that?"

"Fred," Bill said, and, reaching over, pushed the pillow back onto Harry's face. He felt very noble for resisting the temptation to keep pushing. Ginny might want him back eventually.

Dan, cleaning off an artifact they'd pulled out that day, called Yves over to see, and soon everyone's attention was on the painted figures moving around on the vase. About half an hour later, someone called out, "Knock knock," from outside. It was Ginny's voice.

Everyone looked at Harry. He pushed the pillow aside and looked at the tent flap with his brows drawn together.

If Ginny wanted to see Harry, nobody would be able to stop her. Bill cleared his throat. "Come in, we're decent."

She poked her head in, and her eyes darted around the room. Her mouth tightened slightly as she met Harry's gaze.

"Who are you looking for?" Bill asked.

"Harry, of course. Come on, we need to talk."

Harry's eyes darkened, but he got to his feet without a word and followed her out.

This didn't look good. Bill waffled for a moment over whether to intrude, then decided that after the two installments of the fight they'd had already, they didn't need another. Or at the very least, they needed a referee. He didn't care if Ginny took Harry's entire skin off, but he was damned if he was going to see her hurt again tonight.

The pair were walking so swiftly that they were already several feet away from the entrance to the tent. Bill took a few running strides to catch up. 

Ginny was speaking in a low, urgent whisper, but somehow, it didn't sound angry. "Rania was having a look at the translation, and she got it wrong the first time. The ceremonies are meant to be performed at the half-moon, not the full moon." She was hurriedly braiding her hair back out of her face.

"The half-moon? Why?" Harry reached in his pocket and gave her a hair tie.

She fastened the bottom of her braid in quick, neat movements. "Border time. Things can go either way--"

Harry glanced up quickly, and the light pouring from the half-moon high overhead glinted on his glasses. "It's tonight."

"And I can't find her anywhere."

Harry swore. "You're sure she heard?"

"It was right after I came back, and then she got the sudden desire for fresh air."

"Have you--?"

"Just before I came for you."

This didn't sound like a couple in the middle of a bitter argument. "What's going on?" Bill said loudly.

Ginny stopped short and whipped around. For a moment, in the moonlight, her face looked feral, nothing like the sweet little sister he'd always known. "Bill!"

He folded his arms. "Something strange has been going on with you two ever since you got here. And I want to know what it is."

"Go back, Bill, please. This is going to be--"

"No," Harry said.

They both stared at him.

The moonlight glinting off his glasses, he said quietly, "I think he should see, love. Remember who we're dealing with."

"See what?" Bill said loudly.

Ginny didn't answer him.

Harry said very softly, "He _was_ in the Order."

She closed her eyes for a moment, then let out her breath and turned. "Bill," she said. "Whatever happens, trust in me."

"What's going to--"

"Please. I've always trusted you, haven't I? You've always taken care of me."

"Yes, but--"

"Now I'm asking you to trust me."

Bill didn't understand any of it, but Ginny's eyes pleaded with him. "All right," he said.

"Promise?"

"I promise."

"Come on, then."

Before Bill could ask anything else, they both leapt from a standing start into full-out runs. Startled hesitation left him several strides behind. He'd never expected this turn of speed from little Ginny. Harry, yes, he had legs like a bloody thoroughbred's, but not Ginny. The boys had always had to wait for Ginny.

They were heading straight for the entrance to the great pyramid. Still moving, Harry and Ginny pulled out their wands and lit them. Taken by surprise again, Bill had to fumble for his own wand, and they were inside the pyramid before he'd managed to light it.

In spite of the darkness, the way was familiar to him from months of excavation. They were headed for the newest chamber. Halfway through, Harry slowed. "Quiet now," he muttered to Bill.

Silent as ghosts, they moved with maddening heel-toe care through the twisting turning corridors. As they turned the second-to-last corner, Bill noticed a sickly green light spilling around the last corner, and his stomach tightened. Nobody was supposed to be in here. Nobody was supposed to use the excavated areas for magical purposes.

Harry and Ginny extinguished their wands with a murmur.

The last corner, and they were staring down into the new chamber. A figure stood outlined against the blaze of green light. Her voice echoed weirdly in the chamber. Without a word, Ginny slipped sideways along the wall and seemed to dissolve into the shaodws.

Bill was still staring after her when Harry said, "That's enough of that, I think. _Expelliarmus!_"

When her wand spat out of her fingers, the woman in the center of the chamber spun, so the light spilled across her features. Just as had happened outside with his sister, Bill didn't recognize her face for a moment. Then-- _"Ellie?"_

If it was Ellie, then it was all right. She wouldn't do anything wrong. She must have her reasons. Bill put his wand back into his pocket, but Harry shifted forward.

Ellie stepped back, then darted for the other exit. Ginny stepped out of the shadows and straight into her path. "Don't even think it," she said. "Or you'll have to figure out how to run with a Tarantallegra curse."

"Ginny!"

At the sound of Bill's voice, Ellie spun, hope blooming on her pretty face. "Bill! Oh, _Bill_, thank god you're here!"

Bill tried to step forward, but ran square into Harry's hand. The younger man held him with almost no discernable effort, even though Bill was pushing with all his might. "Ginny, it's Ellie," he said. "Stop that! Harry, give her wand back, it's _Ellie_--"

"That woman," Harry said, "is not Ellie Jones."

"What? Are you mad? I introduced you just a few--"

"Ellie Jones never existed," Ginny said. "This--" she shook her wand gently, keeping it trained on Ellie the whole time, "is a Death Eater."

Ellie? A Death Eater? It couldn't be . . . Ginny had to be mistaken . . . heat stroke . . .

"Bill," Ellie said in a tremulous voice. "You don't believe them, do you?"

"I--I--"

"I don't know why she's lying but--"

Lying? "Wait--" Bill said, and felt something like a fog clear away in his mind. "Wait. Are you accusing my sister of _lying_ to me?"

"I don't know why, sweetie, but maybe she's jealous of me." Ellie looked kindly at Ginny. "Honey, I know it's hard when your brothers fall in love, and you're not their princess anymore, but trust me--"

Bill's hand closed around his wand. "Who are you?"

"Bill!"

"Her name," Ginny said, "is Marisa Alfonse. She's especially well known for her Love Charms."

"She's quite right, by the way," Harry added. "A Love Charm very rarely forces the victim to do anything they weren't at least slightly inclined to do in the first place." A quick flick of his wand, and she was tied in several lengths of thin cord, ankles and wrists. "The more slight the inclination, the better the charm. Marisa was a real champ at ferreting out the tiniest of impulses." He gave Ellie/Marisa a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Couldn't resist the chance to set us all straight about your favorite subject, could you?"

Bill's brain, floundering like a nonswimmer in deep water, caught randomly at one thing. "You mean you made that story up?" His stomach felt like he'd swallowed a chunk of ice.

"No," Ginny said. "But we already knew what she told us about Love Charms. Harry was right. We had that fight a long time ago." 

She jabbed Marisa in the back with her wand, and the other woman took short, stumbling steps, fettered by the ropes. When she would have fallen, Ginny caught her elbow and held her up with no gentleness.

"Bill," Marisa said, tears shimmering in her eyes. "You don't believe them, do you?"

The cold had spread to his brain now. Just the way it used to when he'd been in the Order, his mind detached itself from his emotions. He would feel later. "If they're wrong," he said, "what were you doing here tonight?"

She sighed. "I was just--I work for a museum. Maybe it was wrong of me to lie to you, but we so wanted this first."

"None of that now," Ginny said coolly. "You didn't want artifacts to put behind glass. You wanted power. It's all you've ever wanted."

For half a moment, Marisa's eyes went as hard as marbles. Then she looked down, her long lashes forming a fan against her cheeks. When she looked up again, her eyes were as dewy and soft as a fawn's. "Bill," she crooned. "Please."

He stared down at her, feeling his newfound resolution waver. Pretty, sweet Ellie . . . she couldn't have lied. She couldn't have.

"Bill," Harry said. "Neither of us are as good at disrupting spells as you are. Can you do something about hers?"

_I'm asking you to trust me_, Ginny had said.

"Bill?" his sister asked.

"Bill?" Marisa crooned again.

"No," he said to her.

Her face twisted into something ugly and hard, and he knew at once that he'd been right. 

Shutting out the curses she snarled, he looked past her, at his sister. "I'll try."

His throat felt dry and scratchy, as if he'd had strep throat. Stepping into the middle of the chamber, he cast a quick _Mirothaumos_ spell. He could see the shape of Marisa's spell now, twisting and intricate, and somehow very, very old. This was not all Marisa's magic. She'd merely tapped into it.

And in the center, there, something was taking shape . . . 

He swallowed hard, feeling beads of sweat break out on his forehead. _It's just another curse to break. You've done this. You can do this._

No time to be delicate--the spell was racing toward fruition. He'd have to break it outright and weather the blast. Weak points--just give him one weak point and he could do the rest--

_There!_

"Everybody down!"

He broke it, reached in, yanked, and turned the spell inside out. The magic, suddenly released, whipped loose and threw him to the floor in a roaring blast of red. He skidded and fetched up hard against the wall. Stars exploded before his eyes and pain in his head.

Then everything fell dark again.

Bill lifted his head, blinking away the purplish spots that floated on the darkness. His joints wobbled as he levered himself up. "Ginny? Harry? You two all right?"

"We're fine," Harry said, lighting his wand and showing Marisa flat on her stomach. He and Ginny knelt on either side of her as if they'd been holding her down.

Ginny got to her feet, then came to Bill and helped him up. He held onto her, as uncertain as a baby learning to walk. "Are _you_ all right?" she asked him.

"Hit my head, but I'm not bleeding."

"That's not what I meant."

"I know." 

Bill looked across the chamber at the woman on the floor. She was still dark-haired and pretty, but her face was completely different. Instead of sweetness and amiability, her features radiated cold, frustrated fury. When she met his eyes, hers were filled with contempt and loathing. 

There was nothing of Ellie left in that face.

Ginny looked at her too, then squeezed Bill's hand, a silent gesture of support and understanding.

"Come on," Harry said, none-too-gently dragging Marisa up by her ropes. "We should have some visitors fairly soon."


	5. Part Five

As they emerged from the tomb, several wizards Apparated onto the sand. The head one, a wizard with brilliant white hair and a completely black mustache, said in Egyptian, "She is subdued?"

Bill's Egyptian had never been prime, and after the past half-hour, he would have an even worse time. But he mustered himself to explain.

Before he could open his mouth, however, Ginny said in flawless Egyptian, "This is her. Be careful. She's sneaky."

Two burly wizards stepped forward and took Marisa off Harry's hands.

Harry handed Marisa's wand over to the head wizard as Ginny started telling him what had happened in the tomb. Her accent would have made Bill's long-suffering language teacher weep for joy.

Bill goggled.

"Bill," Harry said. "I'm sorry, but you're going to have to take credit for all this with your teammates."

Bill's overtaxed brain groaned under this new puzzle. "What? Why?"

"We can't afford to have anybody know what we did. Our work depends on people thinking we're exactly what we seem. If someone here knows we took her down, they're going to start wondering."

Bill stared at him. "Your work?"

Harry looked past him. "Later. I think your spell-inversion woke everyone up." 

Bill turned. The two sleeping tents spat forth puzzled people, who pointed at the Egyptian Ministry wizards and shouted questions across the sand that Bill couldn't quite make out.

Harry shouted back, "We're all right! It's all over!" He turned to Bill. "Just go along with whatever we say, all right? We--"

Green light exploded behind them, and they both spun to see the wizards who'd taken charge of Marisa out cold on the sand and Marisa raising the stolen wand again. 

Ginny rammed Marisa in the middle, and both women went down, hair flying. Bill grabbed his wand and Harry clamped a hand on his elbow. "You could hit Ginny," he said. "It's not worth it."

Bill turned on him. "How can you be so calm?"

"She's taken care of it already."

It couldn't have been more than a few seconds since Ginny had leapt at her, but Marisa lay flat on the sand. Ginny knelt over her, one hand against her throat. She exerted no pressure, but there was something in the way she balanced her weight that hinted pressure was an option.

Harry said, "I did tell you she didn't need anyone to take care of her." His voice was very matter-of-fact, but his grip on Bill's arm eased with excruciating slowness.

Ginny pulled her wand and said, "_Petrificus Totalus_." Marisa froze in place. Ginny got to her feet, dusting off her hands. "We should have done that in the first place."

Harry finally let go of Bill's arm and said easily, "That'll teach us to be so arrogant."

He turned and looked at the excavation team still standing in front of the tents, shocked into immobility by the sudden burst of violence. As coolly as if he were locking a door, he raised his wand and said, "_Obliviate."_

Even from here, Bill could see their faces go lax for a moment.

"It's just a few seconds worth," Harry said, catching Bill's look. "Just to forget what Ginny did."

But they could do a major one, Bill realized. They could enchant him to forget everything that had happened in the tomb, and if he was told in the few seconds' disorientation that he'd taken El--Marisa down, he would have believed it.

And they would, if they had to.

The Ministry wizards Disapparated with their prisoner, and Ginny came to them. Harry gathered her close and brushed her hair back from her forehead, frowning at a raw patch. She gave him a little smile and looked at her brother.

"Bill?"

He looked at her. "Some job I did on her, yeah?"

She smiled a little and leaned her head against Harry's shoulder. "Yeah. You impressed the socks off your baby sister, that's for sure."

Jacki reached them first. "Bill! What the hell is going on?"

Ginny cried, "Oh, Jacki! It was awful! Thank God Bill was there!"

Harry tightened his arms around Ginny, and his voice shook slightly. "Don't know what she would have done to us, if he hadn't--"

Jacki said, "Bill? What _happened_?"

Bill took a breath. "It was Ellie," he said.

  


* * *

Some time later, after all the exclamations of fury and disbelief and relief had been dispensed with and nearly everyone had gone back to bed, Bill sat in the dining tent. The desert air was bitter cold now, and he had his cloak wrapped around him, but he wasn't going in just yet.

Harry and Ginny sat on the other side of the table, the same seats they'd sat in for dinner, when they'd staged a fight so convincing that it had even fooled him. 

He looked at them. "Answers," he said. "Now."

Ginny looked back, singularly unimpressed. "Forty-two."

He scowled.

She said, "It's an answer. Not my fault if you didn't ask a question first."

He exhaled through his nose, and the air streamed out in a plume of white. Between them, the flame of the fat candle he'd lit wavered and jumped. Shadows chased themselves around the sloped ceiling. "What," he said, "was all that?"

Harry said, "A favor."

Silence.

Bill said, "Ginny. I deserve to know."

She sighed, and her shoulders slumped. "Yes," she said. "You do."

Bill listened mutely to the tale of escape from an American wizard prison, a seer's vision of the dig, and the American Ministry's calling on Harry and Ginny.

"We knew two things," Harry said. "That we had to suspect everyone, and that she'd probably put a Love Charm in effect while she was hunting up whatever she was after. So we had to be careful."

"The laundry," Bill said. "The sheets. All those questions about the food. Your--god, your bloody _shoes._"

"It can be anything, and Marisa is one of the best."

"Did you figure out what it was?"

Ginny said gently, "You said it yourself, Bill. Ellie always made sure everyone took their salt."

Bill had to look away, out at the half-moon, hanging low on the horizon. He remembered what Ginny had said so many hours before. _Border time. Things can go either way._"You didn't take it," he said to his sister, still looking at the moon. "I saw you palm it, the way you used to with the vitamins."

Harry said, "Sorry about moving the pan on you."

Bill shook his head. "You couldn't afford me saying anything in front of her, could you?"

Their silence was enough of an answer for him.

"How did you know?"

"When Ginny stomped off after dinner, she took that tablet to your Potions tent to test it. We confirmed it with the one I saved."

"How long will it take to get over it?" Bill asked.

"You're over it already. You've completely lost the inclination that the Love Charm builds on. For the others, it's not quite the same, but without her or the charmed salt tablets around, it should wear off completely by about noon tomorrow."

He nodded. "Ginny," he said. "That Egyptian you spoke. What was that?"

She blinked at him. "I was telling them what happened."

"I mean," he said, "you spoke it perfectly. _Perfectly._ Where did you learn?"

Harry and Ginny looked at each other for a moment. "I've got . . . a gift for languages now," she said. Her hand drifted up to her neckline, where the shining edge of a horrendous scar just peeked out.

"It's quite handy," Harry said. "She can swear for three hours straight and not repeat herself once."

And Bill knew the subject was closed.

He took a breath and asked the most important question. "Did you know it was E-Ellie when you came?"

Ginny said, "No."

"Everyone was a suspect," Harry said. "The women more than the men, but everyone still."

_Even me?_ Bill thought, but didn't ask, because there were some things he didn't want to know.

"The fight," he realized. "That was a trap."

Ginny smiled a little. "Most experts are pretty arrogant about it. They just can't help correcting anybody who has a wrong notion about their area of expertise. When Marisa exposed herself like that, it led us to the salt tablets. If she hadn't attempted her power spell tonight, we would have had time to collect more proof and then call in Raquel's operatives to take her out."

Bill said, "And when they did, you would have stood around gawking with everyone else, and talked about your lucky escape right up until the moment you left."

Ginny shrugged.

Harry rubbed his thumb over a shallow scrape left on the back of Ginny's hand by Marisa's nails. "And there would have been no need for all this . . . drama."

  


* * *

The questions and thanks that bombarded Bill from the others got to be intolerable around midmorning. Somehow, a story had got around that he'd realized there was something off about Ellie from the start, and had pretended to be in love with her in order to figure out what she was doing. 

He hadn't put it about, and every time someone said something about his courage or his brains, he felt slightly sick. Seeking solitude, he went off to work by himself, hunting around the abandoned chambers for small annoying hexes and curses and jinxes he'd missed on the first pass.

He took a break at noon. He wasn't hungry, but from habit and necessity, he took a water bottle and a salt tablet from the chest in the dining tent. Then he stopped, staring at the little white pill in the palm of his hand. She wasn't here, he reminded himself. It couldn't affect him anymore.

He dropped it back in the tin with a clank and went to sit in a patch of shade.

"Hey," said a voice.

He looked up and saw a slender woman about eight years his junior. She wore an enormous green hat to protect her milky skin from the sun, and her brilliant hair flamed in the sun. She was as lovely and graceful as a willow, and as tough as an oak. Her eyes were sad as she looked down at him.

"Hi, Ginny," he said.

She nodded at a patch of sand just beside him. "Mind if I have a seat?"

"Go ahead."

She sat, folding her legs under her. "I saw you put the tablet back," she said. "You need your salt in all this sun. Here."

He looked at the white pill she held out to him. "That's not--"

"It's one of ours. Charm-free. Promise."

He washed it down with water.

"How're you doing?" she asked gently.

"Wavering between feeling like a total sap and an utter fool," he said bitterly. "How about you?"

She put her chin in her hands. "Wavering between feeling like pond scum and wanting to pop over to New York to Transfigure Marisa into a beetle and smash her flat with a dictionary."

"You did your job," he said, and heard the acid edge in his voice with shame. He couldn't expunge it, however. "Why should you feel bad?"

She frowned at him. "I just exposed the woman you loved as a dangerous, manipulative fraud. I'm supposed to be dancing about this?"

The hot bitterness drained away. "Sorry," he muttered. "It's just--it--"

"I know," she said. "You feel like you should have known about her. But, Bill--"

"It's not just her," he burst out. "It's _you."_

"What?"

"You! You're my baby sister, and I never once suspected that--and I _knew_ you weren't made to just drift around and I never thought--Ginny, you _lied_ to me!"

"I didn't have a choice. You know that. It would have been too risky--"

"You lied to me before that. In all your letters, you never once said--"

"Bill, did you even listen to Harry? What we do depends on our not being noticed. On people not knowing."

"On lies."

"Yes," she said. "On lies." She glared at him from under her silly hat, her eyes blazing, her lips tight. "I am what I am, Bill. I won't apologize for it. After last night, you know more about us than anybody not in a classified government position."

"Come off it. I'm sure you've told somebody."

"No."

"Ron and Hermione--or Carmen and Jeremy--"

"_No."_

He held himself very still as the truth of it sank in. "Nobody," he said.

She said back, "Nobody."

They stared at each other, the youngest and the eldest of the Weasleys.

"All this secrecy wasn't my choice," she said, more calmly. "Neither was it Harry's. But it goes with the work. And we need to do the work."

He said, "You like--the work?"

She took a breath and let it out. "Yeah," she said. "I do. I like pitting my wits and getting out with my skin intact. I like knowing I made a difference. This time, though . . . I didn't particularly want this assignment. But--"

"Harry talked you into it?" he guessed.

She turned her head to stare at him. "No. I had to talk him into it. We both knew we were the best ones for it, but he didn't want me to have to . . . There wasn't anyone else with such a good excuse to come to this camp. Marisa would have suspected anyone but a baby sister."

"I thought you and Harry were--having problems. You got here and you were so--" he floundered, "--tense."

"Because of you," she said, as if that should be obvious. "I didn't want to lie to you. And then when we realized it was Ellie, and here you were in love with her . . ." 

"Why?" he asked.

"Why did you fall in love with her?"

"Nobody else did."

She looked down at her feet. "I don't know," she said. "Maybe she knew about your history and gave you an extra-strong charm . . . or maybe without it, you would have fallen half in love with her anyway. I . . . don't know."

"Doesn't matter," he said bitterly. "Either way, I was still babbling on like an idiot about how perfect she was. Why didn't you say something?"

"What would I have said?" She met his eyes. "It just kept getting worse. But every time it did, I told myself that anything was worth it if I could save you from her."

He touched a strand of her hair. "Just like Nicolette," he said.

She frowned. "Bill, I was two."

"And you're not anymore." He let his hand fall. "I've just realized that. When I left home, you were a child, and I kept that picture in my head all these years. Whatever else changed, you never would . . . except you did. Watching you throw yourself on an armed Death Eater and take her down in seconds flat--it scared me. Not because you were in danger, but because you didn't need me to take care of it for you."

She looked at him for several seconds, then put her arm around his waist. "I promise," she said, "that if Fred ever puts Sparkle on the roof of the henhouse again, I'll let you turn him into a warthog for me."

He said, "You knew about that?"

She looked at him. "Bill, I was seven, not blind."

They sat together in silence for a long time. Finally, Ginny stirred. "Harry's gotten an owl," she said. "Our project in Japan's been put off for a few weeks. Can we hang about until then?"

"As long as you like. You know that."

"Just making sure."

"Japan, eh?" he said, making an effort. "Another favor?"

"Mhm."

"And the business at Mamacita's resturant--"

"That was for the Canadian Ministry."

"And Lolita? Another favor?"

"Mercedes. Yes."

"And the Mai Tais? Were you working undercover? Were there Death Eaters running the karoke bar?"

Ginny didn't say anything, and he looked down to find her beet-red. "That actually _was_ just Mai Tais and flaming stupidity," she admitted. "Even we get some time off. But I had to start our next project with the biggest hangover in the Western Hemisphere."

He started to laugh and couldn't stop, even when she punched him in the ribs. When he'd got his breath back, he let out a long sigh. "Guess I'd better get back to work," he said, getting to his feet. "We're all going to have to take up the slack now we're one down."

"Bill," she called out.

He turned.

"If it makes you feel any better, I've been fooled by perfection twice myself," she said. "And neither of them really turned up roses."

"How?" he asked.

"Well, Tom of course," she said. "I nearly died because of that little bit of misjudgement."

"What was the other?"

"Harry," she said.

Bill stared. "Harry?"

She nodded. "If I hadn't gotten over my pretty picture of him as a knight in shining armor, with the white horse and all, I would have wound up hating him because he couldn't be perfect." She smiled, and it was the slow, shining smile of a woman who was happy to the core. "The real Harry's just bursting with flaws, and thank god for that. It's too hard to love perfection."

FINIS


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